Cheating has changed over the years; some time ago cheaters preferred to get clean human urine and keep it fresh and warm until they could attempt to pass it off as their own. We don’t see nearly as much of that today; more commonly cheaters “go to” today is synthetic urine.

You can purchase a wide variety of synthetic urine, all manufacturers claiming theirs is guaranteed! I must admit that some synthetics are quite good at fooling the labs, we know this because we have sent in many specimens to the lab knowing it was synthetic and the labs reported it as negative.

Why would we send known synthetic urine to the lab? This happens when a DOT test is administered, and the donor provides us with known synthetic urine. Regulation dictates we package it up and send it along with a second specimen collected under direct observation. We’re always curious to know if the first specimen makes it through the labs’ rigorous testing procedures and many times it does.

You may ask, if the lab is getting fooled why aren’t First Choice collectors? When you do thousands of collections, and you take pride in providing trusted results to your customers, the meticulous distinction between real versus synthetic urine is paramount.